It's party time in the Florida Straits again. This is a special one, miles offshore in the midst of historic Stiltsville.*

We headed almost six miles offshore out to the start of the island arch that forms the Florida Keys.

The Party was put on by Cabrinha and Adventure Sports. Pete Cabrinha
himself attended to introduce his latest kite design, the Crossbow.

Pete Cabrinha won the Billabong XXL GLOBAL BIG WAVE AWARD by TOWING INTO AND RIDING A 70 FOOT WAVE!
The prize aptly enough was $1000. USD per foot of wave. Well done Pete! Photo: Erik Aeder

The party was held at the southernmost house in Stiltsville, that appears in the lower left of the photo above.
It was established by the Miami Springs Powerboat Club.
Special thanks to the Club for allowing us to use their incredible venue for this event.

Todd and Mila of Adventure Sports cart a Crossbow out for launching while Pete C. gives some prelaunch tips to Jeremy.

Todd gets ready to launch the New Cabrinha Crossbow. Note the unusual kite shape and bridel system.
More about the Crossbow including video clips, FAQs and Demo Dates BY CLICKING HERE

That's Jeremy of Florida Kiting taking a 12 m Crossbow for a whirl in some LIGHT wind. No white caps in sight. I checked nearby wind records
and the breeze was recorded at 5 to 7 mph! Jeremy wrote a review of his kite ride at HERE

Hey, something's up! Pete is moving out ...

He's paddling like he means it, wonder where too?

YOW! SURF IS UP OFF STILTSVILLE!!!

If I didn't know better I would swear Pete is charging down a wave at the Northshore

What a great event. Special thanks to Pete Cabrinha and all the crew at Adventure Sports for putting on the party!

* More about the interesting history of Stiltsville HERE and HERE .
These marvelous structures could fall under the ax of the Federal Government that administers
Key Biscayne National Monument that now encompasses these seven remaining structures.
Help to save these unique buildings from destruction by the Government. More information at THIS LINK.

A sea change in Stiltsville. The photo at the upper right was taken at a Cabrinha party in Stiltsville in 2005. A lot of great people were there including Pete Cabrinha himself. A brand new type of kite was introduced, a BOW kite, called Crossbow. It was a major departure from conventional four line LEI kites in so many ways. This was the first look I had at it along with most of the other folks present. Little did we know how far the concept would go and in far less than the elapsed dozen years to the present day. Performance, safety, wind range, so many factors jumped forward. I was tooling by the Miami Springs Power Boat Club stilthouse on my new Apollo kite recently where we had that party all those years ago and Kent Marinkovic's photo came to mind. Well done guys and Cabrinha.